Key step in the Cubanization of Venezuela taken by Maduro

If you are wondering where protests about shortages in Venezuela will lead (see post below)… you need not speculate any further.

Nicolas Maduro is following the Castro playbook to the letter, literally, responding to complaints about shortages with the implementation of strict rationing.

And what has he chosen to call his rationing card? Yeah… si…carajo, por supuesto: Tarjeta de Abastecimiento.

He could have called it something else, of course, but the Castronoid Ministry of Truth is very doctrinaire when it comes to its abuse of language.

It’s not about rationing, it’s about supply.

Cuban “Libreta de Abastecimiento”

Given that oil-rich Venenozuela has deeper pockets than Castrogonia ever had and can afford to spend more on its repressive measures, Maduro is introducing an electronic card rather than a paper booklet. But the net result will be the same: total control of the economy and of the populace.

The Venenozuelan rationing plan differs from Castrogonia’s in one respect: the official rationale provided by the Oligarchs.

While Fidel and Raul have been able to blame the “blockade” for their fifty-four years of chronic shortages and rationing, Maduro has to find some other villains to blame: hoarders, speculators, and black-market dealers.

According to Maduro, the shortages in his nation are NOT caused by his economic policies, but rather by evil Venezuelans who buy up goods in bulk to resell at higher prices. The rationing card, he claims, will prevent shortages and give everyone equal access to goods.

Large items such as dwellings, vehicles, and appliances will be part of the rationing system and distributed at random, by a lottery.

“We are going to create a superior system,” claims Maduro. “We are going to technify and organize it to the utmost, so that our economy can’t be subverted by hoarders, speculators, and black marketeers who buy up all the merchandise at Mercal and Pdval [leading supermarket chains] and cause problems for Venezuelan families [by selling those goods at smaller stores for three times more].” (Vamos a crear un sistema superior, vamos a tecnificarlos, a organizarlo aún más para que no se aprovechen de nuestro sistema los acaparadores, especuladores y bachaqueros que se van a Mercal a Pdval y se llevan completa la tienda y cuando llega la familia venezolana tenemos problemas.)

Ask any Cuban. Ask any survivor of the former Soviet empire. Rationing in communist states is caused by central planning, and the very nature of a state-run economy. And it is never about fairness or equality. Its ultimate end and true purpose is control of people’s lives, down to the smallest detail. The oligarchs will always get more than everyone else, and corruption and cheating become as inevitable as the long lines that form at every store when some rationed item arrives.

21st century socialism on display in Venenozuela

A la cola! When you have to spend most of your life waiting in line for scraps, just to survive slightly above starvation levels, it becomes a million times harder to protest against corruption and repression.

You won’t find this piece of news in any English-language publication or web site. But you can read about this development at ABC Spain, HERE, in Castellano